ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Scott May <scott@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for that link Thomas - very helpful!

I'm sorry to say I'm still a little confused about one thing (amongst 
many!)...

I'm writing an app that is taking this shape:

- An app that can start and stop as the user and OS decides - which acts 
as the interface between the user and a daemon, which does the real work.
- The daemon, which as I said, does the real work.  This needs to keep 
running.
- Lots of little apps with NO user interface that do work for the 
daemon, running very briefly.  Planning to do it this way to make it 
easily extensible.

Is this a model that will work in our scenario?


The app is a little like Cuttlefish (Linux), or Llama or Tasker (Android)

Thanks!

Till later,
Scott.
______________________________
    Scott May.
    scott@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Mobile  0417 195 018


On 14/08/13 18:34, Thomas Voß wrote:
> Please also see:
>
>    https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/client-1303-add-app-model-and-lifecycle-to-platform-api
>
> and the linked documents for further details.
>
>    Thomas
>
> On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Thomas Voß <thomas.voss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > The state of an application is transparent to the user. Behind the
> > scenes, the system can decide to stop/kill non-focused apps at its own
> > discretion. Whenever the system alters the state of an app to "not
> > running" it offers an archive such that the app can persist its state.
> > With that, a user ideally never realizes that an app has been stopped
> > or killed.
> >
> > Thomas
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 10:08 AM, Tobias Havla <tbhavla@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > On 14.08.2013 10:04, Thomas Voß wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 9:56 AM, Tobias Havla <tbhavla@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > On 14.08.2013 09:54, Thomas Voß wrote:
> > > > > > On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 9:41 AM, Michael Zanetti
> > > > > > <michael.zanetti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > > > On Wednesday 14 August 2013 09:31:31 Daniel Holbach wrote:
> > > > > > > > Hello,
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > On 14.08.2013 09:29, Michael Zanetti wrote:
> > > > > > > > > On Wednesday 14 August 2013 09:07:52 Thomas Voß wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > Hey Fabio,
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > no, applications are not allowed to run in background. Our application
> > > > > > > > > > lifecycle is strict in this respect and we only guarantee focused
> > > > > > > > > > applications to be running.
> > > > > > > > > Does that mean I will have an Ubuntu Edge phone with 4GB of RAM, 8 CPU
> > > > > > > > > cores and cannot do multitasking on it?
> > > > > > > > I don't think anyone specified the phone to have 8 CPU cores - where did
> > > > > > > > you read that?
> > > > > > > Nowhere... I think you get my point...
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > How is "app authors can write daemons" = multitasking?
> > > > > > > How does this relate? Thomas said there will be no running apps in the
> > > > > > > background / minimzed apps, which to me means there will be no multitasking.
> > > > > > We have had this conversation multiple times in the past, and version
> > > > > > 1 of our application lifecycle will not allow to run arbitrary
> > > > > > applications in the background. Instead, we will provide selected
> > > > > > services to hand over to the system for certain tasks, e.g.,
> > > > > > downloads, alarms, music playback. Please note that this is a policy
> > > > > > targetted towards the "mobile phone" usage scenario and swapping
> > > > > > policies at runtime when transitioning to different usage scenarios is
> > > > > > one of the primary goals of the lifecycle architecture.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Version 2 of the lifecycle will then allow applications to run their
> > > > > > own background tasks, UI less, with restrictions on
> > > > > > CPU/Memory/resources in general.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Thomas
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > --
> > > > > > > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
> > > > > > > Post to     : ubuntu-phone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > > > > > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
> > > > > > > More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
> > > > > If Ubuntu Touch doesn't support multi task it is far behind iOS,
> > > > > Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry. Sorry, I thought it would be a
> > > > > modern system that requires a lot of power, so we can do the same things
> > > > > as on our PCs.
> > > > Okay, let's be clear here: Multitasking and application lifecycle are
> > > > related but distinct topics. Obviously, Ubuntu Touch will support
> > > > multi-tasking, but an application lifecycle architecture that allows
> > > > for controlling resource consumption of applications by the system is
> > > > sorely needed to ensure a long-running _mobile_ device. It is not
> > > > sufficient to assume that app authors will get it right and it is
> > > > important to note that users always "blame" the platform for bad
> > > > battery life. And that is for a good reason: It's the platform's/OS's
> > > > responsibility to put mechanisms in place to manage a device's
> > > > resources!
> > > >
> > > > Our application lifecycle policies and state machines allow us to
> > > > exercise this level of control for specific usage scenarios, but they
> > > > do not touch on general multi-tasking capabilities and we can leverage
> > > > the full process state spectrum to ensure a seamless operation.
> > > >
> > > >    Thomas
> > > So can two or three applications run at the same time and other gets
> > > closed/suspended or can I switch between two applications only with
> > > reloading the application?
> > > We have a gesture to quick switch between apps, so if we have to reload
> > > apps while we are multitasking this gesture makes no sense. A good way
> > > would be suspending apps like Android does (/Greenify). The doesn't
> > > notice that and the battery life is good.